Well, I am officially en vacances! Light of spirit and glad to leave the day job behind for a bit.

A pal at work is on holiday too.

Soon, she will be packing at least three suitcases and going on a cruise around the Mediterranean.

I am packing one rucksack to carry plus a rack-bag for my bike. I am going cycling in France.

She is going for a week. I am going for a few days.

She will spend a day carefully thinking out her wardrobe and including evening shoes, dancing shoes, sandals and comfortable walking shoes. She will be mulling over dresses, skirts, tops, matching jewellery, fluffy jackets and matching sets of swimwear and towels.

I will be spending a day making sure the bike is tip-top, packing three T shirts, two pairs of shorts, undies, cozzie, light fleece, cycling shoes and one pair of sandals.

Where she is going it will be hot, virtually guaranteed.

Where I’m going it will be only slightly warmer than here, with cloud and breezes and hopefully a bit of sunshine.

She will be fed fine food many times during every day.

I will eat cheese and french bread, crepes and seafood accompanied by rough local wine.

She will sunbathe on a sunlounger or disembark at pre-determined points along with a couple of thousand others for a few hours on shore.

I will be consulting the Michelin or following my nose, cycling to find deserted beaches, walking, getting sand between my toes, collecting shells, swimming and sitting around reading and watching the waves.

She will be shopping and buying clothes at extortionate prices in the special higher-priced shops for cruise passengers.

I will be buy a few strings of onions to decorate my bike for the homeward journey.

I don’t think we could really be more different. But I wouldn’t swap places for all the tea in China.

DT man flew Aeroflot thirty odd years ago and can’t remember a thing about the stewardesses, which indicates that they must have been on the extreme side of mundane.

What he does remember is the announcement to passengers not long after they’d reached cruising height en route to Yugoslavia.

€œSomething to the effect that we were sitting in a Tupolev that could be converted to a bomber in under three hours. The bomb hatches were somewhere under the luggage.€

You can just imagine the exchange of looks between all the passengers. I doubt anyone except the pilot was impressed. It hardly inspires confidence, knowing that in the event of a sudden conflict, you and your case full of cozzies and beachtowels would be unceremoniously ditched to make way for bloody great missiles to be winched aboard.

Anyway, it seems Aeroflot are replacing the old clamp-faced stewardesses with glamorous model-types and the cabin staff are having a make-over.

They intend to junk the blue-and-orange uniforms after being told by psychologists “that the current colour evokes revulsion in passengers.€

They have looked at the uniforms of the other major carriers, according to a spokesman, who sounds quite enthusiastic about it all.

€œMy son sent me a wonderful video clip of Virgin Atlantic €“ all of their stewardesses are in bright red uniforms and look like professional models.”

Design agencies are at this moment all vying to produce the best design for a new uniform.

The Aeroflot guy pulled no punches for the reasons why the Aeroflot stewardesses needed a new look.

€œWe have fired a lot of stewardesses for being rude to passengers.€

They are recruiting €œvery striking, very eye-catching girls€ none of whom will be larger than a size 12.

Which make you wonder what people actually want in an air stewardess. For my part, it’s someone friendly who smiles, is helpful and serves decent food and a jolly nice glass of wine or champagne €“ and offers you a second or perhaps a third glass without you having to ask.

She amuses and quietens kicking, screaming children. She is very nifty indeed with sick bags and she comforts those who are rigid with fear. In short she is a Mother Teresa of the Skies.

She could even look like Mother Teresa for all I care. Model-girl looks and size 12 figures don’t do a thing for me. Are Aeroflot really catering for some kind of €œI’m Baboushka €“ fly me€ male fantasy? I should add the caveat there that it does help in a confined space if the stewardess doesn’t, as Neil Hannon sang in his brilliant song €œNational Express€ have an €œarse the size of a small countreeeeee…€

Speaking, without the slightest hint of bitchy, as a very plain kind of girl, model girl looks can be sooo plastic €“ as if they’ve been manufactured in the old Stepford Wives factory. Charisma and warmth go a long way.

DT man has never forgotten the more mature Lufthansa stewardess who took a shine to him

on a long flight back from Beijing. Thanks to a dodgy chow mein served within an hour of leaving Beijing, I was feeling green and a little fragile so was unusually monosyllabic company.

Meanwhile Fraulein Charm herself was all twinkly smiles and despite having about a hundred people to serve, kept coming by and offering him stuff.

€œAnother cushion? Another blanket? Some extra fruit (fruit always works with him)? Do have some lovely German chocolate.€

He was loving it; revelling in all the attention like a spoiled child while I was catatonic under a blanket conscious of the abdominal gurglings that accompany the mysterious and rapid conversion of solids to liquid.

€œWould your partner like some chocolate?€

€œNo. She’s not feeling too good. But I’m fine.€ Ho, bloody ho.

“Well you might as well enjoy, then sir.€

I swear she gave him four chocolate Christmas novelties and even rustled up an Easter egg from somewhere.

Ok I admit it. She was very nice. She smiled at me too and no I didn’t need another blanket.

It was just that I got the feeling that with me, she was watching my colour change from Putty to Whisper of Fern and had already calculated precisely how long it would be before I threw up.

There have been developments on the fffffridge fffront. That chap who was so contemptuous of my interest in his fridge has capitulated and revealed all.

That just demonstrates the power of a blog. The depth of curiousity about fridge contents and the solidarity shown by my brothers and sisters here persuaded him that it would be churlish to withhold access for a moment longer.

He still thinks it’s quite sad of me to want to know but hell, I can live with that. I’m quite looking forward to a visit to the Johnny Onion Museum very soon so that will represent new depths of freakery, according to the friends who have vowed never to come on holiday with me. But that is their loss. They will never know the joy of diving for the purple sea urchin.

So the contents started normally enough with UHT milk (Yuch!!!) and eggs “Unidentifiable date” – pretty well guaranteed salmonella, then.

He fished out something solid of irregular shape in a plastic bag. He dropped to the floor. It didn’t even crack. He had no idea what it was.

“Quite dense,” he said. “A bit scared to try that.”

Tellingly (though obviously I didn’t say a word) he put it BACK in the fridge!

Course, if he was a serial killer, he would say something like “a bit scared to try that” wouldn’t he? Ah-haaaa. It would be quite a convincing cover story if the object was in fact a body part that he’d air-dried like serrano ham. I could just imagine him hacking bits off and devouring them if he gets the munchines while watching a movie.

The sugar thing completely fits in with my theory that people who aren’t really interested in food fill their fridges with other things like boxes of matches, packets of screws or in this case, an empty bottle and sugar.

The freezer was no better. A weird lump of leaves in cling film. An opened ice lolly and a bag of what looked alarmingly like babys’ testicles. Dozens of small, opalescent white orbs.

“They are for soup.”

Yeah right. Serial baby killer. Definitely. That could be the only explanation. There was absolutely nothing in fridge or freezer, apart from the ingredients for a hideously smelly and possibly fatal omelette.

Fortunately I won’t be invited for dinner. Especially now if he reads about the “serial killer” thing. My curiosity is satiated but when it comes to appetite satiation, I’ll go elsewhere.

Weather warning: It’s a bad hair day out there, girls. I tell you now, I’ve just walked outside for all of 40 seconds to check on the new fish in the pond and the bedhead hair just frizzed into Crystal Tips in record time.

For those wondering who the hell Crystal is, she was heroine of childrens TV cartoon series – basically a girl with terrible bushy hair like Hendrix who had a dog. Tragically, she wasn’t even black or she might have got away with it, like Marsha Hunt. I never watched the programme myself but have been called Crystal Tips enough time to feel kind of familiar with her.

So I’m not going out on the bike. Neither am I jogging. I might do a little dancing in the kitchen because that won’t entail any lengthy hair-straightening process.

Having natural wavy hair is nothing but a curse. It’s just vile. The kind of hair that all mothers think is very cute but in fact is totally uncontrollable. And one side always waves differently to the other which is annoying to one fond of symmetry.

Back in the days when bobs were the thing, I had one and the left side of my head used to blow-dry perfectly. A nice straight glossy sheet of hair obediently curving into the neck.

The other side was a nice straight glossy sheet of hair which always wanted to flick out. That kind of hair is fine if people only see you from the side. I suppose I could have engineered my entrance into rooms so I stayed really close by one wall to afford the perfect side view.

It was plainly inconvenience that people expect you to face them directly when you meet them, so I used to have to blow-dry that flicky side to oblivion before it would lie down and curve in like I wanted it to.

And even then (because hair definitely has a mind of its own) after about a hour into the morning, the first rebellious bits of hair would revert to type and start flicking out in a challenging way. And the other bits of hair which weren’t confident enough to be rebellious but were easily influenced, would just follow suit. So by the afternoon, a substantial enough portion of hair would be flicking out, in a jeering way as though to say “Whatcha gonna do now eh? No hairdryer. Hide away? No way, woman. You’re at work!”

Nowadays, of course, I could tame that criminally unruly hair with Products. You know, the bottles of gloop at the hairdressers that easily cost as much as the hairdo itself.

“Oh you only need a very small amount,” the counter girls say. “That 20ml bottle is £42 but it will last you for months. It’s quite good value really…”

The daily hair battle went on until I changed hairdressers and found the man who’s been an integral part of my life for 26 years. Mark was just starting out with his first hairdressing salon in a frankly dodgy part of Gloucester when I started going to him. First thing he said was “Let’s forget the bob.”

He’s cut my hair ever since. No need to change. He is the perfect hairdresser. Not only does he do a brilliant cut, taking full account of the ornery nature of my hair, he is sharp and hilarious and it’s an hour spent with a mate, catching up, reading his latest filthy joke, admiring the iphone pics of his gorgeous deerhound and hearing some juicy goss which of course I am not at liberty to reveal, being the soul of discretion.

The girl who washed my hair at my last appointment was assuming I’d been lucky to get an appointment with Mark. No luck, I said. Just that I was a client of some long-standing.

She giggled when she realised he’d been cutting my hair for longer than she’d been alive.

“I didn’t know he was THAT old!” she squeaked. Ooops. Sorry, Mark, your secret is out.

So maybe that’s why hairdressers are doing so well and holding apart the gaping jaws of this credit crunch. New salons are opening up all the time.

Women will make all sorts of sacrifices to save money but the barnet will always be a priority. Having decent hair is a pre-requisite to self-esteem. Although I suppose one could argue with with sufficient self-esteem you wouldn’t care about the hair. So maybe having decent hair is all about vanity. Vanity v self-esteem. Anyone care to argue that out? I’m a bit short of time. Got to go leap around the kitchen a bit with the Fratellis.

It makes not a jot of difference to me. I have rarely been tempted to expose my tangible assets to the merciless sun.

I’ve seen what it might do to them. Some of the nut-brown wrinkled dugs I’ve seen paraded poolside in Greece and Tenerife would be more attractive upholstering a couple of Chesterfields.

I tend to agree with an experienced colleague who is firmly of the opinion that the vast majority of people look better with their clothes on.

With the exception of gorgeously lithe, perfectly formed Swedes and Danes and the under 25′s, the rest of humanity should ensure that the dangly floppily-doppily bits and any unruly overhangs are covered thanks very much.

I am descended from a long line of prudes; the kind of women who performed mind-boggling contortions in order to prevent any exposure of ‘bedroom bits’ to prying eyes.

I have photos of my gran wearing a hat, an ankle-length dress, zip-up boots and two cardigans in her deckchair during a sunny day on the front at Penarth. Her sister wore a buttoned-up coat. They are both beaming contentedly.

My uncle – her youngest – would go to the beach with the family but refused to swim or remove his school blazer and tie – even in the hottest weather.

The pics show him squinting at the camera in a very obvious sulk at having to be there at all. He was a budding chemist – happiest back at home, experimenting with lethal chemicals on my nan’s kitchen table.

Pater was photographed wearing a mackintosh on the beach too although later, after he met my mother he began to show off a fine figure in swimshorts wearing stylish metal-framed sunglasses. My mother looked fabulous in some classy l950′s swimsuits but the prude gene was dominant.

As kids, me and my brother were forced to use the Changing Tent she had carefully made. It was a voluminous construction of blue flower-patterned terry towelling with a drawstring at one end. It enabled mater to stand in it at Barry Island on a Bank Holiday surrounded by hundreds of semi-naked sunbathers and change in complete privacy – albeit with her head protruding and staring into the middle-distance like a watchful meerkat.

We were reluctant and had to be dragged kicking into the towelling depths. It was hot and dark in there. Mater was only concerned about getting the changing ordeal over swiftly. No objection was brooked. Limbs were wrestled into and out of garments. From the outside it looked like ferrets versus weasels as the tent bulgled and shifted furiously.

Finally the changed child would burst from beneath the tent looking desperate and make a break for the waves, drowning being preferable to towelling asphyxiation.

Fortunately the prudishness was wearing thin as far as I was concerned. As soon as I could wriggle out of the swimsuits chosen for me by mater and into bikinis – I did.

The most treasured bikini was a brilliant white towelling job. The height of fashion in the Traffords catalogue. It was cool. Not as cool as the one Ursula Andress wore in Dr No but, frankly, mine probably look as good because I was fifteen and well, when you’re fifteen you don’t realise just what you have going for you…which is probably just as well…but that’s a whole other blog.

We were on a family holiday at Brean Down in Somerset. Brean verged on the exotic because getting there entailed dad driving across the Severn Bridge quite slowly so we could all admire the miracle of engineering.

There was no sign of surf in the Bristol Channel that day. It was one of those warm still days when the sea meets the horizon, broken only by the hazy humps of Flat Holm and Steep Holm and subdued waves lapped weakly over watery ripples of dark, wet sand. The perfect day for a swim to christen the new bikini.

I swam a bit and lounged around floating for a bit before I emerged self-consciously from the water in the vain hope I might look a little like Ursula, smoothing long wet hair away from my face as I headed for the family, sitting further up the beach.

Mum looked impassively passed me into the distance before recognising me and doing a classic double-take of pure dismay.

“Oh Jan. Your bikini!”

I looked down. Everything was still nicely contained but the bikini was now an evil khaki with contrasting shit-brown seams.

I might have burst into tears. These things matter when you’re fifteen. There may have been associated shrieking.

“Never mind love we’ll soak it in bleach. We’ll get it back,” said mater.

“Bloody English beaches,” she muttered to pater. “We’d never have had this trouble at Caswell Bay.”

Sadly, she never did restore it’s snow-white brilliance. The sand-mud of Brean endured – especially in the seams – and it was thrown away.

There were other bikinis but they proved unreliable for an active kind of girl. One top memorably escaped on a waterslide at the lido and had to be retrieved by quick-thinking friend. Learning to dive never really happened because I was less concerned about style and more concerned with keeping the bikini top in place.

The mind-set of women who just don’t care who sees their breasts has always puzzled me. Why are they not picky, like me? Don’t they think they are special enough to be choosy about the viewer?

One holiday, I left DT man lying snoozing under a sunshade on a beach in Cyprus while I went off snorkelling. I got back to find him in danger of being engulfed by some topless girl who was leaning over him. They were definitely big enough to blot out the available light.

“No we don’t want any tickets. His disco days are over, thanks,” I said crisply, shaking water and wet sand from my facemask and snorkel somewhat carelessly over her. She pushed off.

“Spoilsport. She wasn’t doing any harm. Just selling tickets,” he burbled. “She just woke me up. For a minute there I thought I’d died… “ Yeah. Yeah. Like the French women, the hussling hussy was emancipated….yawn. Perhaps going topless made her feel empowered.

I don’t need to whip my top off to feel empowered. I can do it by saying “Bugger the ironing” and going out on my bike. Although, on a few golden summer days way back, just before sixth-form, I did the empowering thing differently, just briefly.

Games was cross-country or tennis in the summer and the cross-country route took us over the top of Chosen Hill. Well one day, we’d hit real summer so we took a sneaky detour and discovered a south-facing slope.

For a few glorious minutes the four of us lay down in the clovery grass and sunbathed topless in perfect privacy with the Severn Vale all laid out below.

There was a particular deliciousness about those stolen moments. Whether it was the feel of the sun on skin or the satisfying thought of the others hauling their asses up the other side of the hill and down again while we lazed, I’m not sure.

We managed it a couple more times that summer – and every time, we still made it back to school quicker than the girls who walked, so we were never found out. Quite empowering, really.

Some insight into behind-closed-doors discussions at the Department of Health to prepare and save the nation from the most potentially damaging pandemic Britain has seen for some considerable time…

April – early discussions – Swine Flu cases recorded in Mexico.

“Oh. It’s only in Mexico at the moment. Let’s not bother to quarantine anyone on flights from Mexico. Runny noses and pigs? Pah. So a few people have died. They probably died from other things. Difficult to tell when guacamole goes mouldy.

- First swine flu cases recorded.

“So a few people have swine flu in Scotland. It’s frankly, quite a long way from London and they have their own health arrangements up there. They’ll be fine. Plenty of doctors left in Scotland.”

- Swine flu cases increase.

“Where HAS all this swine flu come from? Unbelieveable. Let’s swab people to find out if they’ve really got it. Could be summer colds after all. Tell them to stay indoors if they are not well. That’ll work. But let’s be sensible here. Keep schools open etc. Let’s not interrupt normal service.”

“Hmm. This thing isn’t going away. It’s mild though. Keep telling people it’s mild and mostly won’t kill them unless they have something else wrong with them at the same time, in which case, it could. Tell you what, let’s make GPs record the numbers of people we ‘think’ may have swine flu. Those will include people with tonsillitis and neurotics delighted that there’s a new bug on the block but, well, at least we’ll have numbers for graphs now that there’s no swabbing. Oh. That line on the graph there is near vertical. How did that happen?”

- Thousands of cases reported.

“Bloody GPs are complaining they can’t do their normal work treating ill people because of all the swine flu phone calls from the worried well. Let’s set up some kind of Pandemic Helpline whereby the briefly-trained, hitherto-unemployed will dish out anti-virals to anyone who croaks convincingly down the phone. Ok some of these people may already have had Tamiflu from their doctor but the call-centre people can’t tell and quite honestly, don’t give a toss if patients end up selling their 5 day course for £200 on the internet.”

- Three days later.

“We’re supposed to have endless supplies of Tamiflu aren’t we? We trusted patients to be honest and now look what they’re doing – stockpiling Tamiflu. It’s just not cricket.

What are people thinking? They’ve had once course of anti-virals and now they’re going back to their doctors moaning about feeling like they’re dying and pleading for more Tamiflu.”

- One day later.

“Whining GPs say they are getting inundated with sick note enquiries. Didn’t we say everyone could have two weeks off anyway? Yes. Let’s do that then. Get the BMA off our backs. Surely the economy can stand a third of the workforce lying on the sofa for two weeks watching daytime TV? Anyway that dreadful Jeremy Kyle will drive them back to work.”

- Yesterday.

“Tell you what. Yes we might be the European country with highest infection rates but I think it’s time we fever-scanned everyone at the airports. Don’t want Johnny-foreigners bringing any more of this dratted bug here do we?”

- Today.

“Oh and while we’re at it. We’d better tell the public all about the pandemic flu website and Free-on-Demand Tamiflu phone line. Will only cost a few million plus another couple for the website. That ok?

Yes I know the hospitals are going to be stretched what with saving the lives of seriously-ill children who have complications from the virus, but let’s face it – in the short-term we want to look as though we’re doing something – allay public fears and that sort of thing. The fact that Tamiflu may only cut two days of misery from the virus is neither here not there. We cant help it if people multi-dose themselves without anything appearing on their medical records. We’ll think about the children and the hospitals crisis in the next month or so. See how it goes.

This new kind of planning seems to be working out; react as appropriate on the day. Brilliant strategy!”

It happens. You’re on a night out , a shoe becomes detached from the foot and it’s only the next morning that you go to put the shoes away in th Beautiful Shoes Box – for where there are Beautiful Shoes there must be a box where they can nestle in luxury in fine tissue paper – the conditions of storage that they so royally deserve – that you realise one is MISSING!!!

A lady in Bristol has lost a Beautiful Shoe on a night out. Her once-pair of designer faux leopardskin shoes cost £370. They are made by Louboutin. She is issuing “Have You Seen This Shoe” leaflets and appealing to the public for help to find it, apparently.

I can imagine her desolation at finding only one beautiful shoe. The frantic search of the house, the fevered wracking of the brain – sorry racking (bladders are wracked, brains are racked) the realisation that the shoe was lost at some point during the night out – but when?

This is where I am perplexed. I have Beautiful Shoes. They have three and a half inch heels. When you put them on, you know you have gained altitude. You are up there in thinner air, elegant, slimmer of calf and noticeably taller.

Being 5′ 7”ish anyway they place me somewhere near 5′ 11” – roughly-speaking in the “shortarse” league of supermodels in socks. I speak purely in terms of height. I can’t rival supermodels either in terms of brain capacity or looks. Such heels are excellent for having a decent view in crowd situations – cheese-rolling, rugby, state funerals.

You walk differently in towering heels. You descend stairs differently. If you run you have to run on tippy-toes gripping the shoes like hell or you go clop-clop-clump and immediately leave at least one them behind. You walk with some concentration because you actually have to think about it a bit instead of leaving it to the brain to organise along with breathing and sneezing. (catch it, bin it, kill it)

So the perplexing thing is that this lady doesn’t have a memory of the actual point of loss.

Maybe it’s to do with the hills in Bristol that she didn’t realise that she was three inches or so lower on one side compared to the other. Bristol used to be a sea-faring port. Perhaps the ladies of Bristol do still lurch and list after midnight, like floundering vessels.

I suppose if you were making your way sideways up the relatively steep Park Street at 3am, windowshopping perhaps, while chatting with your mates – you might lose a shoe with a three and a bit inch heel on the leading (upper) foot without noticing it.

But in other circumstances I would find it a little puzzling that the loss of three and a bit inches wouldn’t have been more evident and that the point at which she came down to earth on the left side would have been memorable.

You’d think that a lady’s mates might notice the wobbly irregularity and make some comment along the lines of “Ere!! Shazza!!! Woss wrong wiv your leg, then? Iss all short, all of a sudden.” Hic.

Surely the clump-clop effect would be noticeable over time? Wouldn’t the feel of the naked foot hitting the pavement – or indeed road – more than, say twice, be enough to burn itself into the consciousness of the most shot-raddled female?

Anyway, the lady is on the front of the Western Daily Press this morning holding her remaining right shoe and exhorting everyone to look around, check their shoe racks and see if her missing shoe has somehow found it’s way to their homes.

She’s reported to be “inconsolable” but she is pictured smiling bravely in the face of her terrible loss.

She feels it entirely possible that another lady enjoying an adventurous night out, will have spotted the Beautiful Shoe, stuffed it into her bag and taken it to a place of safety. Why anyone would do such a think escapes me.

If I saw a Beautiful Shoe abandoned in the street, I might place it on a wall so the owner could come back and get it. I think shoes are for wearing, not for looking at and even if it was the most beautiful, I might be filled with regret that the unfortunate owner didn’t abandon the pair but I wouldn’t be tempted to nick it. A shoe should never be home alone.

Between you and me, I don’t think she will ever see the Beautiful Shoe again.

I have a feeling it is even now lying cossetted and swathed in luxury tissue inside a box, at the bottom of a wardrobe belonging to Bristol’s most glamorous unidexter.

Today was a good day for a traditional filthy mountainbike ride in the Forest.

Just had to overcome some initial reluctance from one who was negatively obsessed with the raindrops under the little puffy clouds on the weather forecast website.

“Oh it’ll be much brighter this morning,” I soothed.

“A couple of light showers nothing more. The real rain will be this afternoon.” (Which would be conveniently when I was watching the Tour. Good grief. Brad Wiggins today!!! Time triallist turned sensational Tour rider.).

Anyway, everything looks so vivid and alive after rain and I don’t mind getting lashed about the legs with wet ferns.

So it was a really varied outing, riding the gamut of Forest of Dean trails and enduring the classic weather we’ve come to expect in Britain in July; Sun, cloud, warmth, cold, light showers, torrential heavy showers and moderately windy.

The trail started with a cycle track, glistening in the sun, people kindly restricting their dogs for a moment as we passed, Cannop Ponds with rafts of ducks bobbling, ruffled in the breeze.

Rain didn’t stop play in Parkend where the cricket pitch is about the only flat expanse of land in the vicinity. Then it was up and more up towards Coleford, past the remains of historic Darkhill iron works and then we turned left off piste. Ducking under low hanging dripping trees, ferns brushing legs, brambles reaching for the face and Capt Sensible pushing on up the hill, unaware of the leafy branch stuck in his cycling helmet looking like a hastily-assembled Private Pike-style camouflage. Discovered laughing is hampered by lack of oxygen on a climb.

Through Coleford and back into the forest with god-awful roots, boggy bits and bits of wood and stumps everywhere.

“This isn’t a track!” Dissent in the ranks.

It definitely was a track, I maintained, against determined opposition. We pressed on. Well, I honestly thought it was. It turned out it wasn’t but it at least took us close to a beaten track, thus avoiding further unpleasant mutterings.

”Hey! Sunshine!” Dappled shade, actually but as close as we were going to get. Very pleasant anyway especially riding over undulating soft needly carpet. There was a long section of churned up soil as though a squirrel had gone bonkers with a rotivator; classic signs of wild boar damage – but as usual, not a boar in sight.

Bit of a blat on a fire road then it was time to head down into the valley again. It looked technical, steep and not too safe then suddenly there was a huge red-raw track recently carved by the good ol’ tree-hauling contractors. Torrential rain showers meant it was too dangerous to ride, what with stones, bits of tree and indeed two fallen trees across it. Also, slick red mud wasn’t helping my braking capability. We actually had to walk. Disgraceful!

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,“ I moaned, determined to write to the local rag pointing out how people whine hysterically on about the “damage” done by an inch of two of knobbly cycle tyres and fail to complain about this wholesale destruction that inflicts big ugly scars on the landscape.

Good humour was restored with a good fast downhill track. Had decided not to trespass in the RSPB reserve but the spotted flycatchers decided to visit us anyway – five of them flitting about – so win/win!

Somehow missed Wimberry Slade, which was a pity but the torrential rain was continuing so there was no going back to find it.

Came down at the bottom of Bixslade, an old horse-drawn tramway which runs up the side of Cannop Valley to a sandstone quarry. The original stone sleepers still form part of the track. It’s very overgrown and it’s special because it’s where I had the scariest ever downhill. My first bike, a cerise and silver Carrera (Halfords special) had a flexstem which was an early attempt at suspension. It was rubbish.

With all the rattling and bouncing over slabs on the downhill, the flexstem, already loosened to provide max effectiveness, got looser and looser until, just after half way, I suspected that the handlebars and stem weren’t really attached any more.

This thought occurred as I was hurtling wonkily past a family. I may have been shrieking slightly and I was almost totally out of control. By some miracle, I reached the bottom without crashing. The relief was exhilarating.

The rest of the ride today was a simple toodle back to the Round Tuit where two girls were in charge of the bacon baps.

“Funny how the young are so lacking in social skills these days,” I mumbled to Capt Sensible. “Those girls. No conversation. Like blood from a stone.”

An incontrovertible truth. But who cares when you have a hot bacon bap in hand? I bit into it. Brown sauce and mustard dribbled out of the sides. Delish.

Torrential rain began again. Two walkers at a nearby picnic table were dressed in full-length orange rainproof coats. They pulled up their unfeasibly pointy hoods and sat glumly looking like the Buddhist branch of the Klu Klux Klan.

No fun at all sitting in the rain getting cold so we headed for the car, me managing to ride with one hand while carrying my precious half-drunk cuppa in the other. Drove back cold, damp but anticipating the luxury of a fabulous hot shower. Tidy.

The very first thing my boys do, when they arrive home, after the initial hugs and “how are you’s” are done, is look in the fridge.

It’s the fridge first, then the cupboard where the bread/cakes/snacks/crisps are kept, then they take a look at the tins and veg – just to make sure we have some.

I think it’s a kind of checking mechanism that a) they will actually be fed something decent and b) we haven’t gone fruitarian or macrobiotic without telling them and c) things are normal.

The boys are big fans of normal when they are home. Which is just as well because not a lot of change goes on around here. Anyway, it gives them the opportunity to pick something out of the cupboard with a 1995 sell by date, hold it aloft, laugh out loud and declare “You’ve had this since I was in Year 10!!” That’s normal.

“That Milk of Magnesia was just for you, in case you had a tummy upset” I say. Defence is often the best form of attack and if you can make ‘em feel guilty at the same time, sobeit.

Anyway, I too look in fridges. Well, doesn’t everyone? I looked in my own mother’s fridge. I looked in the fridges of the people I used to babysit for (milk for my tea, obviously..) I look in the fridges of relatives and of friends. Well you do when you’re helping out fetching stuff.

I’m not ashamed of my fridgidity (kindly note the spelling). It’s second-nature. But when i expressed interest in a pal’s fridge recently, he was frankly, contemptuous that I would want to know!

As far as he’s concerned, it all fell into place. He’s not that interested in food. Hardly eats. One of those people who, as far as food is concerned, is all talk and no trousers. Well obviously he has trousers – that’s just a figure of speech – but you see what I mean.

What was surprising that he didn’t share the view that in some ways a fridge says far more about certain aspects of your life than, say, a house or garden or a bedside bookpile (mine’s once again teetering on the brink of causing gbh).

Anyone who watches House on TV knows that clues lies in fridges. His junior docs will go and pull a patient’s entire flat to looking for the site of the potentially serious infection that has resulted in vastly magnified blood cells with orchestrated sound effects (It’s sarcoidosis. Usually is.) They would have a field day looking in my fridge.

Not entirely sure why, but I always had a problem with hairy things growing in my bottom drawers. Well they used to. Things have improved since I acquired Acme Magic Hair-Away Fridge Matting!!!! which goes in your salad drawers. Lakeland, actually. It’s a kind of green sponge. If you keep, say a cucumber, on the matting for, say, a month (maybe you’ve gone off salad) instead of growing those interesting hairs which have a purplish sheen and little knobbles on the end (like the swine flu virus but much, much bigger) the cucumber shrivels to a courgette. If you keep avoiding it and taking a peek every five days, it shrivels to the size of a green chilli, which is something of a miracle. It doesn’t sprout one single hair in the process. After a month you can take it out and show it to friends. Guess what this is? They absolutely never guess it’s a cucumber. And the chances are, they’ll never want to come to dinner again at your place, so win-win!

See what I mean? So many fun fridgy things to do! Hairy things in the bottom drawer are serious indicators of salad-dodging tendencies. Interesting sauces – like Gentleman’s Relish or the magnificent Anchovy Sauce might be there and you can tell if fridge owner is a dedicated bargain basement type or does actually value the good things in life (Lidl tomato ketchup versus Heinz Tomato Ketchup).

Do they cook a lot? If they do there will be home-made sauces, stock-bases, sour cream or creme fraiche perhaps and certainly left-overs from yesterday waiting to be used creatively.

If it’s a woman’s fridge, and moreover a woman cook, there will undoubtedly be chocolate. (I’m allergic or there most definitely would be..)

Single people’s fridges look very different. If they cook, it will be obvious. It they don’t there will either be a few ready meals in there, or nothing much so they will put other stuff in the fridge to make it look less sad and empty. Lagers and packets of crisps, boxes of matches and Fairy liquid.

I love student fridges. Always packed with interesting stuff and with specially demarcated zones for the five people who share it. Only as a visitor, you can’t see the invisible boundaries so it’s interesting to swap the sprouting aduki beans on the top left shelf with the manky half curry tray from the centre bottom shelf. And the yah French goats cheese (back middle) with the plastic cheese squares lurking bottom shelf back left.

A kind of inverse law applies if it’s a very smart new kitchen with a sparkling six burner hob and griddle and a huge and rather sexy Smeg fridge. Unless they have kids, don’t expect to find anything in there whatsoever apart from Ginseng drinks – because they are probably AIEO types. All Image; Eat Out.

So, sadly, I can’t tell you what’s in my pals fridge. Didn’t get chance to have a good enough nose after receiving verbal corrective slap for showing interest.